the chairs and links

I’ve been stuck for blogging topics recently, and I realized that part of the problem is that I’m less interested in personal finance and productivity now than I was in the past since I feel I’ve reached a bit of a plateau. I understand some of the core lessons, and while I’m not perfect in implementing them, I’m confident that even when I do the wrong thing I’m clearly aware I am and have some reason for doing so.

What I am excited about these days is the concept of sustainable living, which encompasses a lot of areas. I’m heavily influenced by a few sources: Early Retirement Extreme (see my review), The Good Human, and several other websites. I’ve realized that while I’m always happy to save money and do things more efficiently, I feel better when I waste less and do more for myself rather than having others do it for me. I have a long, long way to go in this area – I still have a lawn service cutting my lawn, for example, although I plan to change that soon – but doing better in this area makes me feel, well, better.

Case in point: thanks to Bubelah, on the way home from somewhere one weekend a few weeks ago we saw someone was throwing out lawn chairs. Now, they looked nasty: plenty of dirt and bugs and leaves ground into them. They were on the curb and ready for trash pickup. Bubelah asked me to turn the car around and take a quick look, and after examining them I hauled them into the back of the minivan and voila: lawn chairs will get a second life thanks to us, scrubbed and cleaned and ready for sitting for another decade. And we’ll do our best to pass them on to someone else who can use them. That’s better than seeing that plastic in a landfill, right?